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So many activities…so little time! That seems to be the motto here at MMLA Pomona. Yesterday many of our students chose to gather on Marston Quad to enjoy yet another day of beautiful weather here in sunny Claremont, California.

Arabic Academy students spent their allotted activity time learning and playing new card games. Coordinated by RA Marji, this activity allowed students to focus on their Arabic verbal communication skills (and spend some time getting some fresh air and soaking up Vitamin D outside).

We have almost everyone here at Pomona (still waiting for a few who had a flight cancellation, but they are on their way!) Everyone seems excited, and it’s always amazing how quickly people bond in a residential program. You would never know that people only met a few hours prior.

We will post about our convocation last night shortly, but for now I wanted to make sure family members have our staff contact information.

Arrival day is upon us! Well, was upon us, rather. Returning students excitedly greeted each other and practiced communicating in their target language from the get-go, and new students watched in wonder as they began the immersion process. Students checked in with their language groups, turned in their phones and said goodbye to parents as they began their new lives at MMLA Pomona.

Bienvenidos, أهلاً و سهلاً, bienvenue, and 欢迎. The MMLA Pomona campus staff is hard at work arranging all the details for your arrivals and we are looking forward to meeting you in person. We are already abuzz in French, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic (and some additional languages too!) with a diverse and knowledgeable staff that hail from the U.S., China, France, French Guiana, Réunion, Morocco, Yemen, Israel, Palestine, Algeria, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Germany, Kenya and Romania.

As the MMLA summer program is a challenging educational environment in which students are expected to learn massive quantities of information, a fair amount time is naturally spent in the classroom. However, teachers try to create engaging classroom experiences deserving of the bright and eager students who learn within them. While the immersion environment ensures that learning happens wherever you go, different skills develop in different places.

A week’s worth of clothes: One of the unexpected benefits of attending MMLA is that you learn to wash and dry laundry if you don’t already know. This is a valuable skill that will undoubtedly be useful in college. On the flip side, ever since I returned, my mom has made me do my own laundry. Thanks, MMLA! What this means is you really don’t need to pack that many clothes. I would recommend bringing 7-10 shirts and a couple pairs of pants/shorts plus pajamas.

In late June, I left home unsure what to expect. I had never gone away to camp before and the longest I had been away from home was about a week. I wasn’t worried about being homesick, but was unsure about how the rooming situation would work and whether I would enjoy living on the Pomona campus. I did end up feeling homesick during the first week of the program due to my difficulty with the language pledge but these feelings soon faded as the program progressed. Never having lived in a dorm before, I did not know what to expect.